Good Will Hunting
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Good Will Hunting can be viewed as a critique of the widespread internalization of the values of classism in the United States by the very persons who are most likely to be victimized by class warfare. The film tracks the transformation in consciousness of Will Hunting, a young man who has never had a break in life and who is on the point of acquiescing in underclass status. Indeed, he is on the point of selecting a path in life that dooms him to existence on the lower-class criminal fringe of society. The narrative follows his halting odyssey into an entirely new kind of life, as he discards, sometimes with bittersweet reluctance, what cannot serve that life. Meanwhile, the audience is exposed to the sharp class cleavages of American experience.From one point of view, Good Will Hunting can be interpreted as an entirely predictable exercise in American sentiment. Yet the performances lend verisimilitude to the narrative. The situation of the central character is the plainest statement of the class-riven nature of American society. Will Hunting is constantly getting into petty trouble with the law, constantly before a judge, constantly having to justify himself, and continually nursing an "attitude problem." His job is the kind that members of the underclass routinely fill: janitor, cleaning up after students and teachers at an elite Boston university (MIT). It turns out, of course, that he has repressed a childhood of abuse and that his defensiveness is actually an ego-def
. . .
m.
Thus far it would appear that Good Will Hunting is more about angst than class. However, it is Will's psychological torment that has blocked him from an education and career commensurate with intelligence he knows he has. It traps him in the loop of low-rent experience that dominates the lives of him and his drinking buddies, especially Chuckie Sullivan. These young men are perennially stuck in South Boston, working construction when they can. That looks to be Will's fate as well, especially since he resists any other kind of life.
To be stuck in the economic underclass is one thing, but to reject the chance to break out of that circle is something much more serious. The inference must be that if Will were not psychologically blocked he would take the chance. On the other hand, Will is smart enough to realize the class implications of some elite careers. He contemplates the prospect of working for the National Security Agency, which deals in intelligence ciphers in war and peace, reflecting sarcastically that perhaps he might break a code that enables the U.S. war apparatus to send his working-class buddies who cannot find other work (but not children of the elite) to war to protect the interests of corporatism: "Meanwhile m
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
, South Boston, Maguire Will's, Will's NSA, Professor Lambeau, Security Agency, Damon Affleck, Discovering Will's, California Equally, Corp Freud, south boston, class warfare, trouble law, damon affleck, golfman 1998, child abuse, freud 1961,
Approximate Word count = 1212
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Good Will Hunting
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
